The RV-14 is a different airplane entirely, and not a replacement for anything. The RV-12 being in the light sport category might explain its change. Beyond that, With the exception of the RV-7 replacing the 6, I don’t think Van’s has ever upgraded or replaced any of their product line. They seem to focus all their engineering energies on new products.

In my experience, they don’t even “upgrade” or update their build manuals for a given model. A bit frustrating on a few occasions, but with all that said, not much is really in any need of substantial upgrading.

In short, I wouldn’t delay your purchase thinking you’ll be missing out on something if you pull the trigger too soon.

There have been small, incremental updates to the -10 but they arenít obvious unless you go looking and know what youíre looking for. A couple of examples that come to mind are the fuel valve which is different and mounted lower in the tunnel than the originals. Another example is that the fuel lines from the tanks to the valve now have a bulkhead fitting in the side of the tunnel to make the fabrication of the lines easier (first line from tank to fitting outside tunnel, second from fitting inside tunnel to valve). There have also been some improvements to the fiberglass cabin top (quality, not function). There are other evolutionary changes but these are the first few that popped into my head.

Many of the small changes that probably originated from builder feedback to make things easier. In general this seems to be going on quite a bit as changes made for other models ripple down. The prop spinner comes to mind - it used to be just the fiberglass cone and builders were on their own to do prop blade cutouts. Later, templates became available and now the spinner is molded with prop blade cutout markings. BTW, this is now the standard spinner that all kits get.

I suspect that there will continue to be small changes like these incorporated, but probably nothing revolutionary for the -10.

I took the factory tour a week and a half ago. I have my emp kit already. I inquired as to the possibility of any upcoming upgrades, so I could wait if necessary before ordering wing and fuse kits. For example the -10 is match drilled while the -14 is drilled to final size, no drilling/deburring required as I understand it. Also has a wiring harness. The Vanís rep said no consideration being given because it could invalidate the 51% rule approval from the FAA. Of course some mods mentioned above would not affect that. But my takeaway is Vanís considers it a mature design. Your mileage may vary...

For example the -10 is match drilled while the -14 is drilled to final size

While there are a lot of final drilled parts on the -14 there is still considerable match drilling and deburring to be done and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't add a lot of time to the overall build. Only the -14 parts are final drilled but the kit, like all of the kits, contain a lot of parts from previous aircraft. For example, there are a lot of -10 parts in the -14 kit. Van's is smart about reusing previous parts if they can, keeps the cost down.

.. building the -14 kit seems to be about half the time to build the airplane .. that 90% done, 90% to go is so true

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